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Thursday, October 2, 2003
Vote on EPA nominee delayed
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… Washington Post’s OnPolitics article by staff writer Eric Pianin, “Vote on EPA Nominee Delayed”. Excerpts: “Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-Vt.) and his Democratic allies blocked a committee vote today on President Bush's nomination of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency in a bit of partisan theater designed to dramatize their pique with the administration's environmental policies. Insisting it was "nothing personal" against Leavitt, Jeffords and the Democrats boycotted a meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, denying chairman James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) the quorum he needed to send the nomination to the Senate floor for consideration. Jeffords showed up just long enough to complain that he and his colleagues needed more information from Leavitt and the administration about Bush policies before they could vote, but none of the eight Democrats attended the session…. A furious Inhofe said the boycott of the committee was an unprecedented act of partisan obstructionism and insulting to Leavitt, whom he described as "one of the most highly qualified people ever to be nominated for this job." He said the Republicans never attempted to block a Democratic nominee to the EPA and that they had demanded only a fraction of the information from President Clinton's choice to head the agency that the Democrats are now demanding of Leavitt. When Jeffords replied that he considered Leavitt a friend and intended eventually to vote for him, Inhofe fired back: "If that's the way you treat your friends, how do you treat your enemies?" "It's easy to say this is not personal about him," Inhofe said. "It is very personal." … with the presidential campaign heating up, Leavitt' nomination increasingly has become a source of partisan rancor and maneuvering. Four Democratic senators -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and presidential candidates John Edwards (N.C.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) -- have said they would use senatorial "holds" to prevent the nomination from reaching the floor until Leavitt and the White House address certain issues.
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this page was last updated: 10/02/03